For the protection of Cook Inlet king salmon and ensuring future sport fishing opportunities, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish made several advisory announcements concerning sport fishing.
The first indicates that sport fishing will be closed for king salmon, including catch-and-release in ALL Cook Inlet saltwaters north of the latitude of Bluff Point. The second is that sport fishing for king salmon will be closed for the Kasilof River through July 15 and is restricted to catch-and-release beginning on July 16. The third advisory announcement is that personal use gillnet fishing hours will be further reduced on the Kasilof River beginning at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday, June 15 through 11:00 p.m. Friday, June 24.
Colton Lipka, Area Management Biologist, tells KSRM:
“What we’re looking at is just low king runs across Cook Inlet. We don’t have, we’ll call it a bright spot, at the moment. From Anchor, Deep, Ninilchik, Kasilof, Kenai, all of our major king streams are all very low abundance this year and so we’ve had to take these extra restrictive measures in cases of those recent emergency orders closures and even on our hatchery stocks in the Kasilof and Ninilchik to conserve wild kings that are also migrating at the same time.”
Lipka says there are no clean answers on what’s causing the numbers to be at record low levels:
“It’s the big question. It’s still out there, predominantly the ocean survival issue is our leading theory, but it’s, as you know, the ocean’s a big place. It’s very hard to study. No clean answers there. In the meantime, we have to do our part down here in the inriver and nearshore fisheries to reduce king harvests as low as we can to get as many spawners onto the gravel as we can and give mother nature a chance to rebound this one.”
Based on king salmon escapement monitoring in the Kenai, Ninilchik, and Anchor rivers, this year’s king salmon runs are, as Lipka put it, at record low numbers, which has triggered inriver sport fishery closures in these streams and the Kasilof River.
In addition, there were emergency orders put in place, which closed the early-run king salmon sport fishery in the Kenai River through June 30. Another recent emergency order closed the Anchor River and Deep Creek to all sport fishing through July 15. Also, an emergency order closed the Ninilchik River to all sport fishing through July 15.
Click here for a complete list of all the emergency orders from the Division of Sport Fish affecting the Northern Kenai.
